#219 Ended up at a boondock in the parking lot of a Baddeck AA house that was closed for winter

We got fairly close to the Baddeck area. There had been a boondock on the web and I saw what it was I wasn’t so sure. It was just really a pull-out on the side of a really busy highway right near a port area.

I saw a police officer and asked him what his opinion was about overnight parking. He said well I'm not sure that we mind you parking but it seems a little tight for the size of your rig. I don't think they want you here overnight.

Also being on the side of a busy highway isn't exactly where I like to sleep at night even if it is okay. I moved on. I figured I would head up towards Alexander Graham Bell thinking maybe I could be in the parking lot somewhere.

We got up to the place where Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site is and so far, didn't see any great boondocks but I kept driving in hopes that that might happen.

I went through and past the town of Baddeck and the road started getting a little smaller and just two-lane. There was no place to even turn around. I do have some recovery history in my background so I always like to catch a meeting when I can. Then the weirdest thing happened. I had about given up on ever finding a boondock and then I saw this big white building that was kind of like a clubhouse. It had the giant AA symbol on it and I thought wow that would be a good place to park for a minute.

I found a contact number from a sign on the door. It said we are closed for the winter and will be reopening in spring. See you later but it did have a contact number.

I called and spoke to the fellow and said we're just riding around in an RV and we were going to catch a meeting. It looks like she's closed for the season. He said that's right.

I said I certainly don't want to abuse the situation but could I maybe park here in the parking lot for the night and I will be glad to make it a donation.

He said don't worry about the money and I was welcome to stay there. I tucked it in beside the building and just felt snug as a bug took some pictures of course and that was our evening in Baddeck.

All I can say is it felt cool to be rescued by AA 20 years prior. Tonight it was kind of rescuing us by providing a boondock and that was kind of cool.

The next morning, we went to Alexander Graham Bell and we were able to go to the top of the hill to a pretty remote part of the parking lot that could accommodate the rig. We went into the visitor center and had a wonderful visit getting to know more about Alexander Graham Bell.

The internet has the details but we certainly learned a ridiculous amount that day.

Going into this I knew only one thing he was the inventor of the telephone. Ben had said he stole credit for that from a less paid helper. I wasn't sure what was true or not but after spending a day there I began to have great admiration for Mr. Bell.

In his younger years, Alexander Bell was a teacher and he specialized in teaching deaf children.

To my way of thinking it looked as if he had been an inventor all along the way.

They showed a device that he created that would help deaf children learn to speak. He knew they couldn’t hear themselves as they would try to speak. Using sort of a flickering light he devised probably using whale oil he would have them speak vowels or letters or whatever and they could see the way the flame moved. That would help them know that they had said the letter A or the letter B by the way the flame moved so that's pretty cool.

He absolutely invented the telephone and even if he had help with 10 staff, he still had the idea enough to push it through. Even if he had help and didn’t give his staff the credit they deserved I think he gets the credit for chasing the dream, creating the lab that helped its birth.

He also spent an awful lot of time trying to build a very large kite-type aircraft. He made all kinds of test flights on Baddeck Lake. It was a hydrofoil-looking thing.

Here I think it would be better for me to just use the internet as a Wikipedia type insert.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/ns/grahambell/index.aspx

It's a lot easier than me trying to remember what I read on all the plaques. What I came up with is he was a loving husband a great dad and I great inventor and then we're glad we came.

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Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site

559 Chebucto Street, Baddeck, Nova Scotia B0E 1B0, Canada

902-295-2069